Workgroup Filesharing Stopped Working with XP and Windows 7 Systems

I have a strange problem and I'm not sure what is going on. I have a home network with a workgroup set up. I have an XP Pro SP3 system that has most of my stuff on it. I have a Windows 7 Pro system that is on the same workgroup. It has a couple of drives mapped from the XP system.

In the past I was able to open up these drives on the Windows 7 system and see the files on the XP system. All of a sudden it has stopped working and I don't know why. When I click on the mapped drives it says "An error occurred while reconnecting M: to \\xpcomputer\Docs Microsoft Windows Network: The local device name is already in use. This connection has not been restored."

When I close that window there is another window behind it that says: "An error occurred while reconnecting M: to \\xpcomputer\Docs Microsoft Windows Network: The network path was not found. This connection has not been restored."

The IP addresses are correct. I have rebooted both in different order but that doesn't help. I'm not sure why it is acting this way or why it as quit working.

I didn't think it would work but I did unmap them. The issue is that when I go back to re-map them and go into the Network, I do not see the XP computer on the Windows 7 system thus I can't map them. I figured that was the case based on the second error message I was getting.

Sounds like your Firewall has changed (typical with Microsoft updates)

Make sure on both machines that the File and Print sharing is in the exceptions
Also Check your Viruscan software and disable the firewall if it has one - if you are behind a router - you don't need a software firewall. Anyone who gets to the intranet side of a router with no ports open has broken in to your home and is sitting in front of one of your machines.

On the Windows 7 Pro machine turn off password protected sharing (unless all the machines are using EXACTLY the same user code and password).

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